


all grown up

by haloud



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Siblings, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 09:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20672744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud
Summary: It's Isobel's year to pick what they do for their birthday, and she gives them something they all needed.





	all grown up

**Author's Note:**

> for day 1 of michael guerin week -- welcome to the party
> 
> this fic is not for redistribution without express permission.

“It’s my year to pick what we do for our birthday,” Isobel says one afternoon.

Michael looks down at her. He’s standing on Max’s coffee table in order to get enough height to fiddle with the ceiling fan, which Max claims has started randomly changing speeds. He could easily use his powers for this, but it’s also vastly more fun to see Max’s face scrunch up when he walks into the room and sees Michael standing on his furniture.

Isobel flicks to the next page of her magazine, looking uninterested, but Michael knows she’s waiting for his response. Just a few inches from where he’s standing, her fuzzy-socked feet jiggle anxiously.

They haven’t celebrated a birthday in a while. Not together, at least. For lots of those years, Max and Michael could barely be in the same room with each other, let alone find anything to celebrate. And that’s probably a big part of the reason why Isobel’s own birthday became a subject of gossip as the one occasion she _wouldn’t _throw a party for.

Her math is right, though. This _would _be her year, if that was still a thing they did.

“Got any ideas yet?” Is all Michael says.

“I’m working on it. How do you feel about pedicures?”

“I live to be pampered.”

“Good to know.”

When Max comes home thirty minutes later, Isobel doesn’t bring it up again, just tosses her magazine aside and goes to help him unload groceries. Michael goes back to his tinkering, a smile on his face.

* * *

Isobel doesn’t live in the house she shared with Noah anymore. It’s empty at the moment—someday, she’s been saying, she’ll make Michael knock all the walls down and make it an open-concept office for her expanding business. They’ve already made a bonfire of the furniture—it kept them warm while they waited for Max to wake back up again.

It’s the best gift Michael can think of for her, and besides, their birthdays have almost never been about things. Still, just in case, he flexes his eBay skills and makes his way to the party with a two foot tall plushie of Littlefoot buckled into the seat beside him.

They do the party at Max’s house this year. As Michael pulls up to the driveway, it hits him in an unexpected way. This is the first time they celebrate out in the open. The first time there’s no one to hide the truth of Michael from, the first time they’re having an afterparty with _other _people, people who love them. Isobel has stayed meticulously silent for two months about her plans, but the afterparty she set up right away. She wouldn’t deny Max a chance to get sappy with Liz on his birthday, nor Michael a chance to get his birthday spankings. Given, however, that she picked the Wild Pony as the location, Michael can sense the truth underneath the teasing.

Michael climbs out of his truck and waves at his sister, waiting for him on the porch with her arms crossed. She stalks across the yard, and Michael frowns at the pinched look on her face, worry bubbling up from his stomach.

“Happy birthday?” He says, his voice rising like it’s a question, spreading his arms out either for a hug or to make himself a bigger target if she wants to hit him instead.

“Okay, yeah, happy birthday,” she says, then her jaw clenches, then she throws herself into his arms.

Michael squeezes her tightly, and she squeezes back, tension in every line of her. “You’re scaring me, Iz,” he murmurs into the side of her head.

“Okay!” She pulls back until he’s holding her at arm’s length. “Just first thing’s first, you are absolutely _not _allowed to laugh, because if you do I will—”

Her eyes flick over Michael’s shoulder, making eye contact with Littlefoot still strapped into the bench. A strangled noise, part shriek, part gasp, part delighted squeal leaps out of her throat, and all at once she shoves Michael aside and throws her upper body through the open window to retrieve it.

She buries her face in the short, soft fuzz for a long moment, and Michael’s face bursts into a smile. What he can see of her face is red and splotchy; her ponytail is coming undone; her outfit is perfect as usual. She’s _Isobel, _and god, it’s their fucking _birthday. _

Suddenly, Isobel jerks her head up again, shooting Michael with a squinting glare. “Did you cheat?”

Michael shakes his head vigorously, holding his hands up in surrender. “Cheat at what? Buying the perfect birthday present?”

“No, the theme of my party.” Her eyes drop, and she picks at one of the dinosaur’s smooth spots. “Seriously, Michael. Don’t laugh.”

“Iz, I’m not gonna laugh. I _promise._”

After a second, she nods sharply, turns on her heel, and stalks back towards the door, Littlefoot tucked under her arm.

The second Michael walks through the door, he’s assaulted by a wave of—bubbles? The cheap, dollar store kind.

“Happy birthday, brother,” Max says, and blows another stream in his face.

The party? It’s perfect. It’s perfect in a way that has Michael in the bathroom three times that day to grip the sink and try not to bawl like a baby. It’s perfect in a way that has Max and Isobel red-eyed and sniffly too, on and off. Isobel is a genius, in a way that breaks all their hearts.

What do they do? They _party. _They eat too-sweet store-bought cake and drink lemonade they made themselves (out of powder from a jar, of course—what do you take them for?). They play Dance Dance Revolution on an old PS2 Isobel found in her childhood bedroom, basically untouched. They have a blindfolded telekinetic Nerf war across half the desert—which Michael wins, thank you very much, having a much more evolved grasp of telekinetic awareness than his two siblings, who are essentially fragile baby deer in the face of his mastery (says Michael, shortly before getting a dart to the mouth).

They have every birthday party they never had from 1 to 27, every single one in a day.

And after, as the sun starts setting late into the summer night, the three of them shove themselves into Michael’s truck, because it’s the car they can take with all three of them in the front seat. Isobel still has blue frosting on her cheek; Max leans his head on the window like he’s just being his pensive self and like Michael can’t see him tearing up in the reflection.

They’ll have a few beers with the people they love, and then the day will be over. Michael almost wants to take a page out of his brother’s book, but he has to keep his eyes on the road.

When they walk into the Pony, though, it’s to an explosion of confetti and a massive birthday banner—from some old birthday of Maria’s, most likely, because the year number has been cut out and the banner stitched back together—strung across the ceiling.

Max really _is _crying now, as Liz tugs his hands away from his face and laughs, leading him to the dance floor. Michael stands rooted to his spot, frozen by this, this earth-shakingly simple gesture, he just can’t, can’t get his brain to move his muscles again. They’ve got people here. They’ve got—Kyle and Jenna strung the banner up, probably, while Alex moved tables and chairs out of the way and made glib comments about how it would be an easier job for someone tall, like Max. Maria would have stayed behind the bar, mixing punch; Liz probably brought in food from the Crashdown, the best comfort food anywhere in Roswell. Michael can see it all play out so clearly, but it doesn’t make it any more _real. _

He wishes time travel was a power they had, just so that kid he used to be could know, could know even just a flicker, that this was gonna be his one day.

“It’s your birthday, you can cry if you want to, Guerin,” a teasing voice says at Michael’s shoulder, and then Alex is there, taking his hand.

And Michael lets him, follows him into the crowd, into the circle of his family.

**Author's Note:**

> siblings!!!!!!!!!! holy shit!!
> 
> discord @ haloud  
tumblr @ cosmicsolipsism


End file.
